Think Tank Takes: Reasons to worry about jobs data

That unemployment rose but the employment-to-population ratio did not rise illustrates a larger problem facing the economy: While unemployment has dropped, the proportion of Americans with jobs has scarcely increased since the recession ended. Unemployment looks better only because millions of Americans are no longer looking for work and thus do not count as unemployed.

The labor force participation rate rose 0.1 percentage point to 63.4 percent in May. Except for March and April of this year, this is the lowest rate since May 1979 — a time when far fewer women worked in the economy.